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Parents Forum
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<p>Glad that this lesson has been learned! I can't tell you how much heartache has been caused by kids having an "Ivy or bust" attitude towards their college applications. Not having a school that you'd like to attend as a safety is my idea of "bust."</p>

<p>Taking off the State U from her list is not the problem in my book. Getting her to put in a safety that she would really like to go to and that you can afford is the real goal.</p>

<p>So Case Western is her safety? Can you afford it?</p>

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<p>
[quote]
Yale, Standford, Dartmouth, UPenn, WashU, Cornell, Duke, and Case

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</p>

<p>Assuming she has stats good enough to consider the other schools on her list, Case will likely offer her merit aid in the $16-27K range (there are also about a dozen or so full-tuition 32K scholarships). Of course, with a COA of around $45K and climbing, this will leave a chunk of change to be met. </p>

<p>Nothing is a sure thing, so I would suggest looking for a few more schools with similar merit aid policies--see the "schools known for good merit aid" post at the top of the page. Her list looks pretty top-heavy to me, finances notwithstanding. I don't know what her stats look like, but it is easy to overestimate your chances, especially early in the process. Insist that she find a few more schools below the top 20, and it is possible that in addition to insuring that she has some acceptances, she may wind up with some merit money and maybe even a school that is a better fit than the others on her list. (It happened to us....)</p>

<p>Have the discussion with her about what you can afford now!
Good luck!</p>

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<p>Well, I think the most we could pay is about $20,000/yr. But I would rather not pay a penny. </p>

<p>D's stat are excellent - at or close to the top of middle 50% of most elite schools. Or, at about 25 percentile at these schools.</p>

<p>At the end of the day, I guess D knows we could afford even the best if she gets some aid. Me, OTOH, would rather for her to go to state U so I can do my European vacations and drive a BMW.</p>

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<p>Why is this application process so difficult??????!!!!!</p>

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<p>to the OP ... yoru daughter sounds like a great student ... so </p>

<p>
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Yale, Standford, Dartmouth, UPenn, WashU, Cornell, Duke, and Case

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these schools are very much in the hunt for admissions.</p>

<p>In an earlier post you mentioned limiting her to 8 applications. Personally I'm not a big fan of limiting applications to top tier schools especially when merit aid is a goal. Assuming quality applications can be submitted I'm a fan of casting a wide-net ... all the top tier applications are reaches because the admission rates are so low ... low number off applications just means a low chance of getting into a top school.</p>

<p>Trying to draw conclusions from interent postings is tough but the one thing that puzzles me in your postings is what the families position on paying for school. There are mix of comments on how expensive schools are along with a comment about not preferring to pay a penny. From the postings if it were my family I would want to clarify these conversations with my child. </p>

<p>First, the "list price" of private colleges (in the high 40s these days) is not really of consequence ... what matters is what you are likely to pay ... I'd sugest going to one of the fin aid calcualtors and determine your EFC and look up the common data set of the schools in which your daughter is interested to see what their typical fin aid package looks like (for example Cornell requires more loans than Yale from its students). Having completed this exercize you'll have a much better idea of what your family might be expected to pay by the schools.</p>

<p>Second, what is your families position on this. We'll pay the EFC, we'll pay for the amount of the local state U and the student needs to make up the difference on their own if they go to a more expensive school, we expect the student to get significant merit aid, or the student is on their own? Your answer to these questions early in the process will set expectations and really guide your daughter's search. For example, if you will not pay the calcualted EFC and expect your daughter to pursue merit aid then your daughter's current list is not a very good one. They are great schools and your daughter sounds like great candidate but Yale, Dartmouth, UPenn, and Cornell do not provide merit aid ... and I believe Duke has merit aid for few students ... and I'm not sure but I don't think Stanford provides merit aid either. So if you want your daughter to be merit focused your daughter's list is really WashU and Case ... and I'd suggest she add a bunch more merit schools. Be up front now so your child knows the deal and can internalize it, accept it, and can plan around it.</p>

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<p>I agree with 3togo that limiting applications for someone who has excellent stats and needs some merit aid may not be the best course. I wouldn't complain about 11-13 applications (although your D might!).</p>

<p>Rice has come up on CC as a great private school that is cheaper in the first place and offers merit aid. Another one for her to look at.</p>

<p>If you want to simplify the application process, spend all your time NOW looking for 1-2 smaller schools that give merit aid and that she can get into and that she would like. I mention smaller schools, because most people who think they want Ivy don't think they'll be satisfied with a large university. A previously mentioned list of "Great Colleges people have never heard of but you'd like to brag about" was excellent!</p>

<p>Once you get those schools identified, the pressure is off. You can add ANY number of highly selective schools that you want to the college list. The sky's the limit. </p>

<p>But until you get that foundation set up, this process will seem hard and precarious.</p>

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<p>Actually, for most people I know, the application process is not difficult. They apply to 1-3 colleges (usually state colleges or colleges affiliated with some religion or other) that their parents can afford. It's when you have an accomplished kid who has a chance of getting accepted anywhere and the desire to try and a limited pocketbook on the parents' side that things become difficult.</p>

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<p>"D's stat are excellent - at or close to the top of middle 50% of most elite schools. Or, at about 25 percentile at these schools."</p>

<p>Dad: these schools are not giving large chunks of merit money to 25% of their incoming freshman. Your D's odds of acceptance are reasonable; her odds of receiving significant merit money may not be.</p>

<p>Now, depending on your financial situation, she may well receive enough FA, once she is accepted. We do not know enough to help you with that estimate.</p>

<p>Suggest that she and you look deeper: add some LACs that are excellent, well respected in academic circles and regionally, from which she may expect more merit financing.</p>

<p>She needs to know what her reality is.</p>

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<p>While your daughter has great stats, I will tell you from personal experience, it doesn't really matter. D was 4 th in a class of over 1,000 and a NMS recipient. She has won many, many awards, wrote amazing essays, and besides being at the top of the top stats-wise, has a talent (singing opera/musical theater) that won her state and regional awards. She was heavily into leadership and charitable activities.</p>

<p>She was wait listed at Harvard, JHU, Stanford, Penn and deferred (EA) from Yale, then rejected. Your D needs some other schools on her list like Case or she may be in for a very rude awakening come next spring. Fortunately for our D, she was accepted at Berkeley, UCLA, Tufts, Emory, WashU. and is VERY, VERY, VERY happy at Tufts, which turned out to be her perfect fit school after all was said and done. She really is not a prestige hound and finds the kids at Tufts much more like her. (Save the World Type)</p>

<p>By the way...........despite NMS recipient status, she got a whopping $500. There just is no merit aid at these schools and we did not qualify for need-based aid.</p>

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<p>We went through the same thing last Fall--everyone was comparing their top choices with everyone else--and there was a lot of pressure to apply to well-known, pretigeous schools. After acceptances, when I asked for some advice from one guidance counselor, she said that we "must" accept the offer from school "X" because it was such an honor to get accepted and would be a wonderful opportunity. (To tell you the truth, I think that part of the reason for this is because it makes their school look good to be able to list the schools that their seniors are going to)--but I noticed near the end of Spring, and certainly over the summer, when students accepted offers, all of a sudden there was lots of angst about the actual cost, and how their parents were going to be able to afford it, the novelty of going to an elite school was wearing off, and reality was setting in--I remember very clearly the day my D looked at me and said--"I am so glad that that I am not spending everything we own to go to school--it is such a relief!" Apparantly a lot of her friends didn't have choices, except on which $40,000 school to accept--my suggestion is to make sure she has a variety of choices--what she thought about colleges in the Fall was very different than her thoughts in the Spring.</p>

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<p>Be realistic about where your daughter fits in the profile. Itcan be done and there is a fair bit of merit money available. Make sure that she has the resume to qualify for it. Listen to people who have done it and learn from their experience. There is an art to applying and receiving funds that may be available. Everyone looking for merit money has top stats - it is all about making your application stand out. These comments are from personal experience.</p>

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<p>I suggest that you take a very close look at your finances, including running your financial info through a financial aid calculator like the one on CC's home page. If you are like most parents, funding your students' college will cost you far more than you anticipated. Keep in mind, too, that presumably you'll be sending your D's brother to college, too.</p>

<p>Use the financial info to help your D select a range of schools to apply to. If finances are a consideration and your EFC is higher than you'd feel comfortable paying, then don't allow your D to apply to schools that only offer aid based on need. The last thing you'd want is for your D to get into a place like H or S, and then for you to have to say that you can't afford to send her there.</p>

<p>It's far easier to restrict students' dreams now -- before they apply to colleges -- than after they get their acceptances.</p>

<p>Also work out now what your D's financial contribution to her college education will need to be. It's reasonable, for instance, to expect her to work fulltime during summers -- including after senior year in h.s. -- to pay for things like books and her entertainment and clothing expenses. Now is the time to deliniate such expectations, and to also let your D know how much in loans you'll expect her to take out to help with her college costs. The average student in the U.S. takes out a total of almost $20,000 to help pay for their college education.</p>

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<p>Dad, excellent advise so far but a bit more if you can stand it.</p>

<p>First of all, your HS's results from the last few years are a great starting point, but you don't really know the whole story on most of these kids. Who was a legacy? (one or both parents attended that school.) Who was a multi-generational legacy (great grandpa insisted that gramps attend....) Who endowed a chair in neuroscience along the way? Who has an older sibling attending now (some schools care, some schools don't.) Who was a Physics Olympiad finalist or has published a short story in the New Yorker? </p>

<p>Second, looking at the averages of kids who attend is a risky business as well. At the top of the heap, the statistical averages of the colleges all look remarkably the same- great scores, great grades. Yet, every year there are hundreds of kids (Andi Son already been described to you) who end up getting accepted at none of these schools. The stats get your application read; if you are unlucky enough to be the 50th essay that the admisssions rep has seen that day talking about your passion for astronomy or why you love Jane Austen, and many of those other essays are written by kids with similar stats but that kid also plays Oboe and the orchestra needs an oboist.... your kid goes into the reject pile through no fault of her own.</p>

<p>Now add the financial implications of your D's list.... and it's starting to feel like not enough schools.</p>

<p>I agree with the posters who advise deciding what you can/will pay out of pocket, based on your financial situation, and then looking for schools where that number will work either because of your low EFC (and the school meets full, demonstrated need) or because your daughter's stats put her at the very top of the pool (not the top quartile-- the very top.) </p>

<p>If it were my D, based on the very limited info you've given, I would be adding Mount Holyoke, Smith, Rhodes, Emory, Brandeis, Rice. Even if you can't afford to visit Case, your D should email the admissions office to ask if there are special deadlines for the merit awards that she should be aware of- they can be extremely generous, but in my area (it's a popular choice for kids who like the Cornell, JHU- type engineering schools) it has a reputation that if they don't think you're serious about them, you can be admitted without one of the top awards even if you are deserving, so don't let that money go down the drain if it's a school she's interested in.</p>

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<p>I suggest taking a look at the following colleges that offer nice merit aid: Tulane, Rollins (oldest college in Fla. Was modeled after New England LACs), Grinnell, and Vanderbilt and also looking at the following publics, which while large, have merit aid and small-college experiences through learning communities and excellent honors colleges: University of Maryland, University of Michigan.</p>

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<p>Many thanks to all. I am in full agreement that D must have schools where she have good chance for merit aid. We suggested Rice, Emory, and many others. But she does not listen.</p>

<p>I hope I am making a clear point here. I understand many of your suggestions. But none has given me a solid way to change the situation. </p>

<p>One thing we are doing is to set one hour each Saturday to talk about college. D is showing strong sight of getting tired from us talking to her about this every day. The second thing we will do is to increase the number from 8 to probably 10. </p>

<p>However, if she insists to apply only to top schools because she is so sure she could get in and get top $$$, what could we do? We can't submit applications on her behalf.</p>

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<p>OK. I understand now. You are seeking advice on how to help your daughter see her world more realistically.</p>

<p>One suggestion would be to help her see where her stats fall within the accepted applicants for each school If she is not at least in the top 5-10%, she shouldn't count on significant merit money.</p>

<p>This probably, from what you have shared, will be hard for her to swallow. The reason to apply to match reach and safety schools is to play the odds. And the categories apply equally well to the finances.</p>

<p>Is there not a GC at her school who will tell her that putting all her application eggs in stratospheric baskets is not wise?</p>

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<p>What you can do is to let her know how much you're willing to pay each year for her college, and let her know that if there's a big gap, she won't be able to take out loans to cover it unless you co-sign (which wouldn't be a good idea for you to do if you really don't want to pay those loans).</p>

<p>You also can suggest that since she wants to go to the elite colleges that offer only need-blind aid, she also should apply for outside scholarships, something that will take lots of her time. There are some excellent books that she can find that tell her how to do this including one by a guy named Kaplan who funded his way through Harvard through outside merit scholarships.</p>

<p>While you can't apply on her behalf, presumably you are paying for her college apps, and you could say that you won't pay for any of her college apps unless she applies first to a couple of safety schools that she knows she can afford, and that also would meet her needs academically and otherwise. This could force her to broaden her perspective. Sounds like she thinks that only Ivies and similar schools would offer what she needs, and that's unrealistic and also could be causing her to end up with no acceptances come April.</p>

<p>And you could have her read the saga of Andison, and talk to her GC.</p>

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<p>D is a very strong mind girl. Since all her standard test scores were achieved in one setting w/o any study, she believes she is the top of the top. I am afraid that the GC in school is encouraging her to go for these top schools since her is one of the best they got. If I forced her to apply a "not so top" school, she might not spend any time to write essay. In other words, I don't think I could force her to apply to any school she does not want to apply. </p>

<p>She is applying some outside $$. </p>

<p>Nowaday, whenever I start to talk about application process, she would get up and walk away. She just told me she is taking Case out of her list.</p>

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<p>Well then let 'er rip. Natural consequences. Worst outcome, she takes a gap year and learns a lot. I'm a big advocate of knowing when to back off and let the kid face their own music. Short, of course, of physical harm or emotional destruction...</p>

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<p>Dad- you're in a bind. Does your school have a mechanism for the parents to meet with the student and the GC? At our school there was a meeting early senior year which was where we all bared our souls. Parents who had previously told the kid "you get in, I'll pay for it" had to 'fess up to the GC that the kids list was pretty undoable unless a winning lottery ticket emerged within the next few months... so the GC got to work helping the kid craft a more realistic list. Or, parents who told the kid, "you can go anywhere you get in" started looking at the cost of airplane tickets and realized that even if kid only came home Xmas and Spring break, what with taxis and ground transportation, you were adding another 2K per year to the cost of attending..... and so forth. So, get yourself an appointment with the GC for a little reality check right away.</p>

<p>In the meantime, your daughter sounds like a smart, shrewd person who will make her own decisions. What you can do is to direct her to some of the websites on financial planning and college- they show pretty dramatically that outside $, while nice, is generally a drop in the bucket in terms of how people pay for college. Institutional Aid (i.e. those merit scholarships) and subsidized loans (courtesy of the federal government) plus parental savings/current income and student work-study (again government) are the primary vehicles for financing college. She's good in math, so she'll be able to draw the dots between $100K in loans (just to pick a random number) over four years and what her payback obligations will look like once she's 22 years old.</p>

<p>It starts to make merit money from Case and Smith look darned attractive. Then, if she gets those 2K awards from the Rotary Club and those $500 scholarships from the local realtors, it can go for books, a laptop, or whatever.</p>

<p>But at the end of the day-- you need to get the GC to understand your financial limitations. While the school is justifiably proud of your daughter and wants to encourage her to aim high, it also has a responsibility to make sure that come May 1 she can actually send in the little postcard somwhere that she's been admitted to, since the cost of attendance is something you've all agreed is doable.</p>